Yuugi's Fear
by The Fellow Marauder
Summary: When Jonouchi is mad at him and Atemu will not speak to him, Yuugi is left to sort out his feelings, which only seem to make his life miserable. Based on a true story. Please review and don't hate me.


If there's any chance that either my pharaoh or shinyou read this and want to hate me, I have my own personal disclaimer before I deliver anything else: I am a writer. Even though I do not get paid to write, that is my main job as far as I am concerned. When I am in pain or upset about something (or happy or angry or touched) I write about it. This time, this fanfic is driven from pain and heartbreak. So, if either one of you (or anyone, for that matter) wish to get mad at me for what may become of this, I can not stop you. I can, however, tell you that these are my feelings in this particular situation, and if I do not reveal them in some way, I will snap. Or fall into a horrendous depression, whichever comes first.

Thus said, I apologize for wasting anyone's time and I will begin with the fanfic. Angst-haters beware.

Standard Disclaimer: These are my thoughts and my feelings. The characters used do not belong to me

_"Yuugi, you are the best person I have ever known! I love you!"_

_"I'm so happy we are friends! It's like we were made to meet that one day in your grandfather's game store! It was fate!"_

_"You are my one and only hikari, little Yuugi. Ai-shi-te-ru."_

_"Ya know, it's funny, Yuug. I feel like I can be _myself_ around you. I don't feel like I have to pretend and hide my weirdness."_

_"Yuugi, what the hell is wrong with you! I can not believe you would think that I hate you! How can you not trust me?"_

_"I think we should spend less time together. If we continue on like this, I really think I am going to hate you."_

Yuugi sat in the darkness of his room, legs pressed against his chest. His entire room was cleaned up and spotless. If it had been a cheesy cartoon, the floors would have lit up with sparkles and jingling annoying little notes along with it. But this was not cheesy, under-paid cartoon. This was real. And the short little boy on the bed with his legs pressed into his chest was real. The entire expanse of this particular situation was real. The tears streaming from the famous duelist's eyes were real.

Yuugi had been landsliding into a depression since a few days before. The day before, his best friend, Jonouchi, and he had gotten into a fight and Jou revealed his true feelings when he sent Yuugi an email saying why he wanted to spend less time together. Yuugi agreed with his tomodachi, but it still felt as if Jonouchi wanted to end the friendship; as if they were breaking up. If that was not upsetting enough, Atemu had not spoken to him for days. Yuugi could not understand why. He tried time after countless time to get his pharaoh to explain, but he would not. He only stayed silent and would not bring himself to look Yuugi in the eyes.

Yuugi was not sure what was hurting him more; his pharaoh ignoring him, or Jonouchi seemingly hating his guts. So he sat in his darkened room, not wanting to talk to anyone. Even when his boyfriend (Ryou) called, Yuugi would not pick up the phone.

There was a knock on Yuugi's bedroom door. Not moving, his empty eyes glanced over and waited for it to open on its own. He did not want to see anyone, but he knew his grandfather (the person who knocked) would not take no for an answer. "Yuugi?" Suguroko knocked again. "Yuugi, please open this door."

Yuugi still did nothing. His vacant eyes gave him the look of a person whose soul had been sent to the deep, dark depths of the Shadow Realm.

"Yuugi, come on. Open this door right now." His grandfather was beginning to get annoyed. When Yuugi still did absolutely nothing, that was when the old man came in anyway. Turning the knob, he pushed it open, unknowingly letting in a huge wave of light, which seemed to eat away at the darkness. Yet, just as it did that, there was a blanketed cloak of black that wrapped itself around Yuugi, allowing not even a single ray of light to pass and heal him. Suguroko was shocked when he saw Yuugi's clean room, but he was horrifyingly surprised to see the red blotchiness of Yuugi's cheeks and eyes. "Have you been crying?" He inquired unnecessarily. Yuugi remained silent. Stepping closer to his grandson, the Kame Game Store owner sat down on the edge of the Duel Monsters' champion's bed. They sat there, allowing the cold and uncomfortable quiet lurk within the room. As that continued, the black void seemed to be growing stronger, shoving the light back into the hallway and ensuing the pain and heartache on both victims. But soon the silence became too much for Yuugi's grandpa, who was unaware of the things that were happening about him; things that Yuugi could feel so completely. Things the little duelist _wanted_ to happen.

"Yuugi, what's wrong with you?" Suguroko asked, looking deep into his descendent's cold, dark orbs where there once harnessed a great amount of light and beauty. Now there seemed to be nothing. Even the dank undergrounds of hell looked more beautiful and pleasing than the sad remnants of Yuugi, who was cursed to suffer a broken heart with the two most important people in his life hating him. Even though his grandfather, could not see the dark void seeping into the room, nor the reason behind the silent boy's uncharacteristic behavior, he could see the heartbreak that was in Yuugi's eyes. He did not know what was wrong, but seeing his grandson in so much pain etched at his heart, threatening to tear it from his chest. Raising a hand, he placed his palm atop of Yuugi's. Yuugi showed no sign of a response. He did not pull away, he did not look at his guardian, he did not even register having made human contact with someone. This seemed to break Suguroko's heart more. "Please tell me what's wrong." He pleaded. "You're in so much pain and you need to let it out. Cry some more. Write about it. Break something. Talk to the wall; do _something_ that will help ease the pain a little. Cleaning your room and making yourself busy will not close it off. You will block it, but it will keep coming up until it snowballs out of control." After Suguroko realized he was begging, he stopped talking all together. It was not his way of talking to Yuugi that made him stop, but more so the revelation that he was not getting through. Yuugi reacted as much as a comatose patient; responding to absolutely nothing. Knowing he could not force his grandson to talk, Suguroko stood and made to leave the room. Before he shut the door behind him, he looked back once more at the sad sight that was his beloved Yuugi.

After his grandfather had departed, Yuugi's body flopped down, laying almost flat against the bed. He did not move, nor would his body have listened to him if he had. He did not want to be there. He wanted to be somewhere far away, where no one could touch him; where no one could hurt him anymore. The numbness that had threatened to engulf him from the start began to do its work, and Yuugi thanked it for doing so. He would rather feel nothing than having to endure that much pain.

How much time had passed after that was unknown. Seconds, minutes, hours... it was all irrelevant. Yuugi still sat on his bed, his very limbs feeling nothing. His mind was blocking the truth that was hurting his body emotionally and physically. The only thing that Yuugi knew to sincere was that he did not want to exist. He wanted to be free. No more worrying. No more misunderstandings. No more tears, frustration, guilt. He did not want to wait like a puppy after Atemu who, obviously, wanted little to do with him. He did not want to succumb to Jonouchi's wishes constantly. He wanted an end to it all. But when he thought about cutting off connection to either of them, he felt his throat clog up. Tears sprang into his eyes and he started clutching his chest to ease the unbelievable pain that dwelled there.

As Yuugi's inner war raged on, the phone rang, echoing it's noise throughout the room. Shocked and caught off-guard, Yuugi glanced up at the black phone sitting on his dresser. Thinking it was Ryou, he again waited for the ringing to stop and him to give up. Ryou never left messages on the answering machine. But even when the phone stopped ringing, the machine picked up. And a voice was heard, also echoing into the expanse of the room. Atemu's voice sounded as it recorded itself onto the little tape. "Yuugi, I know you're there. Pick up the phone." There were several moments where he paused to wait, expecting Yuugi to do as he asked. But Yuugi did nothing. He stared wide-eyed at the machine like a curious animal. He was not sure if he was supposed to fear it or not. Sighing heavily, Atemu continued. "C'mon, Yuugi, pick up the phone." More pause. Atemu overexaggerated his exhaling, allowing the air to vibrate the mouth piece of his cell phone, registering into the answering machine massage. "Fine. If you're not going to pick up the phone, hikari, I'll just tell you. I'm out with Honda, Otogi and Bakura right now, but I should be home in ten minutes. When I get there, you and I are going to talk." And with that, he hung up. He did not even bother to say he loved Yuugi; which is something he _always_ said before hanging up.

Before Yuugi even knew what he was doing, he heard himself scream. He thought he was angry until, once again, he felt tears fall from his eyes and splash onto his clothes. Getting up, his balance was wobbly as his feet touched the cold, hardwood flooring. Tripping, he landed onto the floor beside his bed and did not get up. He continued to scream. Crawling down against the flat boarding, Yuugi's sobs bounced off the walls and raged within his ears as the horrendous sound returned to him. He could not stop screaming; he could not stop crying. All he could do was curl into a ball once again and do so while shaking profusely. His entire body was a washing machine on spin cycle; shaking and making excrutiatingly large ammounts of noise as it did so.

"Don't... be... mad... at... me..." Yuugi spoke through his sobs, his throat filled with phlegm from his tears. "I... love... you... pha... raoh..." Through all his sobs and constant tears, Yuugi was hit with the subconcious realization that, through all of this, the person he was most frightened to lose in the world was not Jonouchi, who he had been best friends with for years. The person he was most afraid to have abandon him was Atemu; the one person who meant any and everything to that little boy. This was not to say he wanted to leave Jonouchi, but he was completely indebted to his pharaoh. He needed him. It hurt him 10,000 times more when Atemu would not speak to him, than when Jonouchi would not.

There past nearly a half an hour and Atemu had still not arrived. Yuugi had calmed down substantially. He was still in tears and those dry tears were etched into his cheeks, but he was stable. He was no longer thrashing about or screaming. His balance was off a little, but nothing he could not handle. The only motion that was coming from the little boy was minute shaking, which was only caused by his anxious fear that Atemu was coming back for the last time to tell Yuugi how much he hated him. One could say Yuugi was preparing himself for the worst, but he was not handling the plausible outcome very well. Before he had sufficient time to cope with the sure disaster, he could hear a car pull up in the parking lot. A door opened and slammed. Yuugi listened to the fading notes of Bakura's blaring Gackt as he sped off, but the sound that was getting louder were the footsteps leading to the front door. A key was jutted in the lock and Yuugi heard the sounds migrate inside. The tiny duelist froze like the next teen to die in a bad horror film. Immobile and fearful, Yuugi could do nothing but sit on his bed, still crying, scared as a little animal about to meet its end. As Atemu's footsteps reached the door, Yuugi still did nothing. The doorknob turned and light flooded in once again.

There stood Atemu, looking directly at Yuugi.

Yuugi's heart froze cold within his chest.

_Owari._

What will become of little Yuugi? Will Atemu seek divine retribution and tell him he hates him for real? Will Yuugi's heart be broken? Will Jonouchi and Yuugi ever get over their fight and forgive each other, or will they, too, go through a serious stage in their friendship? I can say something cliché like "only time will tell", or I could say something distasteful like "only Momo and Atemu can decide how this will end". I could say one, but both is true. What is _also_ true is that I also have a say in what happens. So for better or worse, only time will tell, and it is up to me, Momo and Atemu to work out the difficulties.

(Btw: whether this is the end of the fanfic or not is simply up to me. I know that. I will write more when I have a better understanding of what is happening.)


End file.
